VUKOVAR HOSTS SEMINAR FOR JOURNALISTS COVERING WAR CRIMES TRIALS

VUKOVAR, March 13 (Hina) - A two-day seminar for journalists covering trials held before the U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague and local courts began in the eastern town of Vukovar on Saturday.#L# The seminar, organised by the Vukovar-based Centre for Peace, Legal Advice and Psychosocial Help in cooperation with the Hague tribunal's Outreach Programme office in Zagreb, is attended by journalists from formerly war-affected areas. According to Zagreb Law School professor Ivo Josipovic, the way the Hague tribunal's recent indictments against retired generals Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac were worded irritates part of the Croatian public. Everything that is legally possible has to be done to prove that the allegations in the indictments are not true, he said, adding that one should provide the appropriate evidence and interpretation which proved that 1995's Storm had been a liberating operation. The president of the Vukovar-based centre, Ljubomir Mikic, said the organiser did not intend to "promote or speak against the Hague tribunal through the seminar, but help us deal with the Hague tribunal as an actuality". Mikic went on to say that it was by coincidence that the seminar was taking place only a matter of days after the departure of Markac and Cermak to The Hague and the start of a Belgrade trial for war crimes committed at eastern Croatia's Ovcara farm in the autumn of 1991. The seminar was also addressed by the spokesman of Serbia's prosecutor for war crimes, Bruno Vekaric, who said that according to some surveys between 35 and 40 percent of Serbia's citizens felt the Ovcara trial was a conspiracy against Serbia and its people. "This is perhaps the first actual trial for war crimes in Serbia," he said, adding that it also served to see whether the Serbian prosecutor for war crimes and the judiciary in general was capable of holding just and independent proceedings. Another speaker was Refik Kodzic, coordinator of the Hague tribunal's Outreach Programme office in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The seminar closes tomorrow. (Hina) ha sb